The Viewpoint

When I took the picture of this tucked away little piece of Americana pie, I think my brain exploded with the sheer potential. Seriously, I can only think of one other thing to do with this image, and that's classified information.

But here's a little exercise for you. Make a short story or a scene about the Viewpoint restaurant. Even if it has nothing whatsoever to do with your book, write a short piece with a few people.

In reality, the Viewpoint is located up near Fontana Lake and Fontana Dam in Western North Carolina. It's old. It's a little forgotten. Sometime recently, it was still open, because the colors are still incredibly bright. But at some point, a small piece of the world changed and travelers began to turn the other cheek as they passed, hurrying on up the road to a landmark or an attraction or something else much more important, somewhere generic enough to make it on Facebook. The real, raw, forgotten beauty in the world takes its time, always waiting for you to come back to it, infinitely patient until wind and rain and time gently pulls it back into the earth, leaving only an imprint behind to make you wonder what could possibly make you feel so at home when you've never been there before.

When you write a novel, one of the best things to do is latch on to that feeling, however you can. Novels are our own little universes. When you feel at home with your novel, that's when you're on to something. It won't be perfect in the first go, but that's okay. It's still coming from you, and no one else. Without that, it's really completely nothing.